seems i’m not the only one who thinks the passport interview scheme is a waste:

Millions of pounds are being wasted on a scheme aimed at combating passport fraud, the Conservatives have said.

The party voiced its concern as the BBC learned that out of 90,000 applicants given compulsory face-to-face interviews, none had been turned down.

…

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said the interview process and its charges were a waste of money.

“Every hardened criminal, organised gang and international terrorist are not going this route to get their fake British passports, they’ll be doing [it] other ways.

“A significant chunk of the cost of a passport is now going on these interviews, which so far are proving to be completely useless.”

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so i sent off for my first UK passport a month ago.

first, they asked my referee to confirm all his passport details. unfortunately he was on holiday for 2 weeks. (their flimsy excuse was that they didn’t have his passport number in their database – which, if it were true, i can only assume would have raised major alarm bells each and every time they’ve swiped his passport at immigration for the 8 years he’s lived here.)

now, i’ve been selected for interview.

which is good really – i was starting to feel ignored. because i haven’t already been interviewed in person by them, oh…. at least a half dozen times i can think of. because i haven’t already had to prove my identity, provide intimate details of my life (including information about my parents, grandparents, and ex-husband, which cannot be of *any* interest to them whatsoever), and allow background checks into my tax records, finances, and employment. they’ve ascertained my identity two separate times when i applied for work permits, once when i applied for my spouse visa, once when i applied for my permanent residency, and two separate time when i applied for my citizenship (last done less than 6 months ago).

they have access to my bank details, they have access to my travel patterns, they can track my mobile phone, they can read my emails, they have me on CCTV about 300 times a day. they have possession of my u.s. passport.

there is not one single iota of information they do *not* know about me. what on earth can they possibly confirm through interview? when my last menstrual cycle was?

in the meantime, i can’t even book a holiday anywhere, so i’m stuck here all through may when the rest of the u.k. is off galavanting about.

the more i think about it, the angrier i get. nothing in this country ever goes smoothly for me. just give me my fucking passport already.

spoon – anything you want

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“all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”

governments may not be accountable to a conscience, but ordinary people are – and they will not be complicit in the suffering, even if presidents and courts turn a blind eye:

South African dockers are refusing to unload a Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.

The arms, including three million rounds of ammunition suitable for AK47s and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, were ordered by the Zimbabwean military at the time of the March 29 election – which Britain and other Western powers have accused Robert Mugabe of trying to rig.

The arms arrived at Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday aboard the Chinese-owned An Yue Jiang and must be taken by road to landlocked Zimbabwe, where the Government has been accused of arming rural militias before a possible run-off vote for the presidency. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has even accused Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) of preparing for a “war” against the people.

January Masilela, the South African Defence Secretary, said yesterday that the shipment had been approved this week by the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which he chairs. “This is a normal transaction between two sovereign states and we don’t have to interfere,” he said.

But opposition parties slammed the decision to grant the transit permit and the country’s main transport union said that its members would refuse to unload the cargo.

“We do not believe it will be in the interest of the Zimbabwean people in general if South Africa is seen to be a conduit of arms and ammunition into Zimbabwe at a time when the situation could be described as quite volatile,” said Randall Howard, a spokesman for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU).

“As far as we are concerned the containers will not be offloaded”.

Rafeek Shah, defence spokesman for the Democratic Alliance, the main South African opposition party, added: “The world’s astonishment at President Mbeki’s political defence of Robert Mugabe will likely turn into outright anger as we are now not only denying the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe, but also actively facilitating the arming of an increasingly despotic and desperate regime.”

(hat tip to charlotte)

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the brits are in a tizzy over teeth.

specifically, gordon brown’s newly-whitened smile. apparently the prime minister had his (rarely seen) grin touched up before doing a cameo on the special charity episode of “american idol” to donate £100 million worth of mosquito nets to africa.

now i’m the first to admit that i find it refreshing that over here, people on television are not contractually required to look like plastic mannequins spit-polished to within an inch of their life. and when i go for a visit home, i do find it jarring to see so many blinding white smiles and airbrushed faces staring back at me everwhere i turn.

and while there are plenty of brits with perfectly unremarkable choppers (not too yellow, not too crooked, just right), the fact is that this laissez faire attitude to dentistry mean that there is a much higher proportion of people (including public personalities) with astonishingly wonky smiles.

however the idea that having nice looking teeth is somehow to be derided, is somehow becoming “americanised”, is rather much.

after all, britain: like it or not, gordon brown is the global face of your nation. if it looks like the second most powerful man in the world can’t access proper dental care in his own country…. well, it just doesn’t reflect very well, now does it?

cut the man a break – it’s not like anyone is going to start mistaking him for george clooney any time soon.

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i’ve written several times here and on the worldtour blog about the horrific abuse elephants endure to feed the tourist industry. there’s a video now making the rounds of the net showing elephants “painting”.

but please watch this one (the segment entitled “training crush”) or this one instead. this is how baby elephants are tamed in asia, so they can be trained to perform in the first place.

i’ll let my friend andy do the talking on this one.

This is not an example of an elephant expressing itself artistically — the drawing is of a side-view of an elephant, holding a giant flower, of all things. This is an example of an elephant trained (i.e. shouted at, frightened, and hit with sticks) until it could reproduce a sketch made by a human. Other elephants in the video appear to be trained to draw various other things on command. How natural.

Here’s a very credulous article from the Daily Mail about the elephant painting phenomenon:

The elephants are taught to paint by a special trainer, who teaches them to hold a brush with their trunks and copy certain objects, including flowers, trees, and even the Thai flag.

Experts believe that the elephants memorize the image which they can then ‘paint by rote’ over and over again.

…snip… The savannah is not festooned with ancient elephant paintings because, I repeat, elephants don’t draw.

many of these so-called “conservation” efforts train the elephants to paint, or give rides, in an effort to finance the upkeep of the elephants. unfortunately this creates a vicious cycle of demand in the elephant tourism industry.

please don’t support it. elephants do not exist to perform parlour tricks for our amusement. they’re wonderful enough just being elephants. if you want to support elephants without supporting cruelty, please donate here.

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i fear for little girls growing up in a world where someone like this is elected to public office. it makes me deeply, deeply sad that there are sick people like this in positions of power.

A senior BNP leader with a strong chance of winning a seat in the London Assembly next month has written that rape is a “myth” and that “some women are like gongs – they need to be struck regularly.”

The Standard can reveal that Nick Eriksen, the BNP’s London organiser and the second-highest candidate on its list for the Assembly, is the author of “Sir John Bull,” a notorious far-Right blog which has regularly advocated hatred and abuse against women. The disclosure will be a serious blow to the BNP’s hopes of London electoral success.

On 24 August 2005, Mr Eriksen wrote: “I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime … Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

“To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that forcefeeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

“The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors.”

On 5 November 2005, in an item entitled “Give her a slap!,” Mr Eriksen approvingly quoted Noel Coward as saying: “Some women are like gongs – they need to be struck regularly.” On 8 November, he claimed that “the vast majority of domestic [assaults] are initiated by the woman.” Mr Eriksen also wrote on 24 November 2005 that mothers “should never go out to work” and described career women as “unnatural and vile… it is a strange kind of woman who would want to invest [her] energies into her job rather than into a man.”

Eleven of the 25 Assembly members are elected on a London-wide basis using a form of proportional representation. The BNP is likely to win at least one of these seats, for which it needs around five per cent of the vote, and has strong hopes of winning a second, for which it needs around seven to eight per cent. If the BNP does win two seats, one of them will go to Mr Eriksen and one to London party leader Richard Barnbrook.

…

Contacted by the Standard last night, Mr Eriksen admitted the blog postings were written by him, but said they were “deliberately provocative” in order to stimulate debate.

“I was trying to make the point that there are two kinds of rape,” he said. “There is stranger rape and there is so-called rape by somebody the woman knows. I was raising an important issue in a provocative way to allow people to make up their own minds.”

Mr Eriksen insisted that he “did not condone violence in any way,” but was “trying to highlight the fact that violence against men is unacceptable.” He said: “It’s typical of the media to distort what the BNP say.”

Mr Eriksen, a former Tory councillor and ex-civil servant at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who lives in Richmond, says he will not resign. If he and Mr Barnbrook are elected, BNP leader Nick Griffin says the party will be invited on the BBC’s Question Time.

i’ve taken the liberty of linking the appropriate blogposts, for your edification.

luckily he hasn’t had to resign. he’s been sacked.

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the tiny ember of hope i’ve held on to for zimbabwe’s future, shows signs of leaping up inside me and flickering into full light.

it looks like change might be on the way.

i only hope there is also peace.

acorn – brokered heart

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the british psychological society has determined, in its delayed inifinite wisdom, that my b.a. degree from new york university, does not meet their criteria. this is because they clearly can’t count.** they have, however, offered me the opportunity to withdraw my application and refund my £100.

i guess i’m supposed to be grateful,*** but it feels like a fucking slap in the face. part of me wants to scream and appeal even if it does cost £100, just for the sake of my tattered pride.

**the bps criteria are that the degree must be made up of at least 50% psychology. nyu’s b.a. required completion of 128 credits, 68 of which have to be in your declared major (psychology). however they only counted 55 credits out of 135 credits??!? not to mention the extra psychology credits from mcgill which nyu wouldn’t even transfer (the rule being that you must complete more than half your major credits at their university).

*** now that our plans have changed and i won’t be attending grad school here anyway

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just wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

i’m pretty sure kurt would be turning over in his grave.

why are the best parts of my youthful nostalgia always co-opted by the titans of crass commercialism?

seems like all my fondest adolescent memories are destined to refashioned as disposable, faddish tat marketed towards today’s “tweenies” who believe they were born to be the arbiters of cool.

this must be what it feels like to get old.

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I’ve been feeling a bit guilty lately about supporting Obama over Hillary in the presidential campaign. In fact, in many ways, i feel like a bit of a traitor.

I mean, I know why I like Obama better (I have this silly thing about voting for someone I can actually believe in, and for me Hillary’s vote for the war was indefensible). I’ve written here before about the thought process which ultimately decided who got my vote.

But I cannot ignore this feeling that I’m somehow letting down the side. Undermining the all-important work and sacrific of generations of feminists before me which *got us* to this pivotal and incredibly symbollic point. And the unvoiced fears of what happens if Hillary doesn’t win – the fear that her loss will be used to corroborate every naysayers argument that ever was.

The country just wasn’t ready for it. Back to the drawing board. Try again in another 50 years.

If Hillary doesn’t win, when will we next have a *real* contender for first woman President of the US? Hillary has become (you should pardon the tongue-in-cheek expression) our “great white hope”.

I heard a podcast the other day which postulated that younger women who are supporting Obama are only doing so because they want so desperately to believe we live in a gender-neutral la-la-land, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Now I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that the political world I live in is genderless. But the inescapable fact remains: I don’t want to vote based on gender identity. As someone else I know put it, “I resent having to stop every time I’m annoyed with [Hillary] to examine my feelings and make certain I’m not buying in to some repressed, societal sexism.”

And more to the point, I don’t want to vote for Hillary because she’s a woman, for the same reason I don’t want people to vote *against* Hillary because she’s a woman. If I truly believe her gender shouldn’t be a factor for those who would vote against a woman for President, then I have to believe it shouldn’t be a factor for me. In other words, if I vote based on gender, I am not only acknowledging that gender bias exists (because of course it does), but also validating it by giving it more merit than other, much more important factors.

That’s not naivete. I simply don’t think you get where you want to go by pointing yourself in the wrong direction.

And I’d like to believe that the ultimate goal of feminism is about women having all choices available to them in equal measure.

I’m grateful for the choice to have a female candidate, and I will continue to fight for the right to ensure that choice continues.

But given the choice? I choose Obama.

wilco – side with the seeds

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the screaming title of the article on the free rag passed out as you enter the tube?

“l.a. gangs come to london”

the actual article: (see if you can spot the ridiculous leap of logic!)

America’s terrifying gang problems are coming to the streets of London, the Home Secretary warned today.

Jacqui Smith admitted there is increasing evidence that hoodies are wearing “colours” to show allegiance – just like rival LA gangs The Crips and The Bloods.

And rivals are shooting and stabbing each other for simply straying into a postcode which is another gang’s terrority, usually marked out either by graffiti or by hanging trainers stolen from mugging victims from telephone wires.

Smith said: “Some elements of gang culture tend to come from the States. We have seen the development of things like the use of tags, the use of colours. Those are all things we need to address.”

The Bloods and the Crips, which boast more than 30,000 members each, have terrorised LA for more than 35 years.

Hundreds have been murdered in tit-for-tat killings, with many being killed for nothing more than wearing the wrong colour T-shirt.

Smith also warned parents that the age of gangsters involved in violence in London is dropping, meaning families must keep a better eye on where their children are and what they are up to.

But one former London gang member dismissed the Home Secretary’s claims – by saying the problem facing the capital is even worse that America.

Ex-Hackney gangster Darrell James, 35, said: “Kids in London aren’t mimicking LA gangsters – they are even worse here than there. You can’t mimic something you have never seen. In LA, gangsters are 21 but in London it’s much younger.

“The whole system has broken down. The family is broken and the schools are broken so the kids have nowhere else to go except onto the streets.”

…snip…

(emphasis mine)

umm, okay. the fact that some gang members are starting to wear the same colour hoodies does *not* mean that london has been invaded by the crips and the bloods, and we are in for all out gang warfare, as the article would have you believe.

also: anyone who actually believes that gang violence in london is worse than south central l.a. is off their fucking head and clearly has not a single shred of credibility.

why do i even look at these stupid things? they just rile me up and they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

sensationalistic fearmongering directed at people who don’t know how read critically.

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when i read news like this, i just can’t wait to leave this country. and i won’t be flying BA again, that’s for sure.

treating immigrants like potential criminals is one thing. treating citizens travelling within their own country as criminals is quite another.

what’s next, a dna sample to book tickets?

Millions of British airline passengers face mandatory fingerprinting before being allowed to board flights when Heathrow’s Terminal 5 opens later this month.

For the first time at any airport, the biometric checks will apply to all domestic passengers leaving the terminal, which will handle all British Airways flights to and from Heathrow.

The controversial security measure is also set to be introduced at Gatwick, Manchester and Heathrow’s Terminal 1, and many airline industry insiders believe fingerprinting could become universal at all UK airports within a few years.

All four million domestic passengers who will pass through Terminal 5 annually after it opens on March 27 will have four fingerprints taken, as well as being photographed, when they check in.

To ensure the passenger boarding the aircraft is the same person, the fingerprinting process will be repeated just before they board the aircraft and the photograph will be compared with their face.

BAA, the company which owns Heathrow, insists the biometric information will be destroyed after 24 hours and will not be passed on to the police.

It says the move is necessary to prevent criminals, terrorists and illegal immigrants trying to bypass border controls.

…snip…

Although fingerprinting is carried out at some foreign airports – most notably in the US – as part of immigration checks for international arrivals, Heathrow will be the first to fingerprint domestic passengers before they board their flights.

Even if domestic passengers have a passport with them, they will still have to go through the biometric checks.

Dr Gus Hosein, of the London School of Economics, an expert on the impact on technology on civil liberties, is one of the scheme’s strongest critics.

He said: “There is no other country in the world that requires passengers travelling on internal flights to be fingerprinted. BAA says the fingerprint data will be destroyed, but the records of who has travelled within the country will not be, and it will provide a rich source of data for the police and intelligence agencies.

“I grew up in a society where you only fingerprinted people if you suspected them of being criminals. By doing this they will make innocent people feel like criminals.

“There will also be a suspicion that this is the thin end of the wedge, that we are being softened up by making fingerprinting seem normal in the run-up to things like ID cards.”

…snip…

Officials began talks with the aviation industry within months of an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airlines in August 2006.

At the time, the Home Office refused to rule out the use of fingerprint and biometric checks as part of routine embarkation controls, and some industry insiders believe universal fingerprinting may be brought in when biometric passports are introduced in 2012.

One option could be to routinely check fingerprints against the criminal record database – a step which is currently only taken when immigration officers have a reason to be suspicious.

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i’ve written here often about how rape victims in the uk are subject to the injustice of the law.

but it’s not just limited to here. as vol abroad points out, there are states in the u.s. where the rape victim has to pay for their own rape kit.

the rape kit is the tool by which police and lawyers are supposed to *do their job* of collecting evidence, catching perpetrators, and prosecuting crimes.

making a rape victim pay out of pocket for their own police evidence is positively criminal.

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this is what i wish i could’ve said to the 25 year old twat of a doctor who spoke to me like a simpleton:

reproduction is not everything. the fact that i have no children is not simply happy coincidence. yes, i have thought about this a long time. approximately 4496 times… that’s the number of times i’ve taken a pill every day in the past 16 years to not get pregnant.

i know my own mind, and will always know my own mind, better than any doctor or medical system… that seems to think i can’t possibly know my own mind until after i’ve had a child. because they seem to think having a child first is a good way to decide if you *really don’t* want one.

my husband, dear as he is, does not get a say over my body. if i decide i don’t want kids, and he has a problem with that decision, that is his problem to work out with me. not my problem to work out with my doctor.

yes, i am defensive – you’re telling me i don’t know what i know. you’re telling me that you know better than i do. you’re judging my ability to make important decisions in my life. my life. which *i* (and only i) have to live. i’ve thought about possible regrets, and i’ve thought about alternatives. i’ve done my research, i’ve considered my options. it’s not your job to save me from regrets. it’s your job to help me control my fertility.

i don’t need your permission to get pregnant. but apparently i need your approval not to.

and i can’t even get angry with you, because you hold the key to what i want.

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today is the 35th anniversary of roe v. wade, the landmark u.s. supreme court decision which gave women the right to legally own their bodies and reproductive choices.

this year’s blogging for choice topic is: why do you vote pro-choice?

i vote pro-choice because as a 35 year old, i’ve never known a life *without* full reproductive choice. it has always in my lifetime been my body, my choice.

so when i vote pro-choice, i’m not voting for a candidate who supports maintaining a constitutionally protected law…

i’m voting to maintain control over my body. for me, it really is that basic, that simple.

long live roe v. wade.

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no longer do you have to be reasonably suspected of committing a crime in this country to be stopped and searched. lawmakers propose that police carry out random breathalyser tests for any motorists.

Police can currently carry out a breath test only if a motorist has been driving erratically, been involved in an accident or committed another offence while driving, such as having a faulty tail light or speeding.

The proposed changes would allow breath tests to be carried out at any time, with roadside checkpoints being set up at points where police were confident they could catch lawbreakers.

and yet some say it doesn’t go far enough:

“Random testing of drivers is long overdue,” he said. “These proposals are a step in the right direction but to have greater impact all levels of police officer should have the power to test anyone, at any time.

this kind of mentality is so pervasive in this country – let’s treat *everyone* like criminals until they prove they’re not – that i sometimes can’t believe i live here. how long until this is extended to random stop and searches for knives, or i.d. cards? why not try teaching more responsible drinking habits (to the vast numbers of heavy drinkers in this country) instead of subjecting everyone to a needless invasion of privacy?

why is handing over one’s civil rights always seen as the easier route? i’ll never understand it. and i’ll not stand for it – not for long. not for me.

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yet another parent has asked doctors to electively amputate a part of their disabled child.

although the medical board has turned her down, it astounds me that she found a consultant who agreed to carry out the operation in the first place.

i’ve said a lot about this before in commenting on the ashley case. i really can’t put into words just how deeply this saddens and sickens me – the idea that we should be medically manipulating disabled people’s bodies to fit our own needs is like something out of a horror movie.

not only is it incredibly disturbing that we think it’s okay to perform operations on people who lack the capacity to consent simply to make things “easier”, but it’s even more unnerving that as a society we seem to think that a lack of capacity to consent is the same thing as a lack of rights.

we simply do *not* have the right to take people’s reproductive organs away simply because we think they’re too “messy” and they’ll never use them. if it’s not something we would consider for a 15 year old of average intelligence, it should not be something we consider for someone with a learning disability.

i’m not speaking from some kind of ivory tower here – i’ve changed the menstrual pads of many women with learning disabilities. i have washed them, dressed them, lifted them into and out of wheelchairs and on and off of toilets. and to those who say periods cause a “indignity” to disabled people who can’t care for themselves, i say this:

you only lose your dignity when people stop treating you with any.

you don’t get allocated any fewer rights the lower your i.q. score….but it would seem you get fewer people willing to stand up for them.

the new pornographers – my rights versus yours

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i finally got a chance to sit down and watch michael moore’s movie “sicko” – his scathing indictment of the healthcare industry in america.

and it is scathing. is it manipulative, simplistic and cheaply sentimental? of course. but that doesn’t detract from the single most pointedly undeniable fact: in the one country in the world which has enough resources to take care of every citizen, people routinely die from lack of basic healthcare and/or corporate greed by insurance companies.

once you’ve lived somewhere where healthcare is considered a basic human right – irrespective of age, employment, finances, medical history – you can never go back to looking at the madness of hmos and medicaid and insurance claims as “just the way things are”. socialised healthcare has its problems to be sure, but i would never want to live without it.

and as someone who once spent 2 months uninsured, praying fervently that nothing bad would befall me in that 8 week time period, i realised that probably the single biggest benefit of becoming a british citizen, is that i will never, ever have to be in that position again. no matter what happens to me throughout the rest of my life, i can always move back to the uk and receive medical treatment.

there’s a part of the movie where moore is meeting with american citizens who live in france, and they’re discussing the socialised healthcare there. and one woman talks about how she feels guilty that she enjoys the security of free healthcare, and the rest of her family who live back in the u.s. do not.

and i feel the same. i know people who’ve stayed at shitty jobs – the kind that make you cry every day – because they needed the insurance. i know people with serious health issues, who get bottom of the barrel care and are grateful for it, because they have no money. i know people who would never be accepted under any private policy because of their pre-existing conditions. i know people who’ve been pregnant and uninsured. and i feel guilty that i’ll never have to be faced with those problems.

it’s insanity. it is the sign of a terminally sick society when someone has to choose which severed finger they can afford to have re-attached, and which one they can do without (as someone at the beginning of the movie had to do).

and i’m so lucky it will never be me.

the star spangles – take care of us

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you know, i’ve not bought non-free range chicken (or any other non-free range meat) in about 2 years now. i didn’t want to contribute to the horrific industrial-style torture of animals.

but watching jamie oliver kill a dozen little fluffy baby chicks on television, because they’re male and therefore economically not worth keeping alive, has pretty much put me off chicken altogether for good, i think.

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although our television is usually on, i don’t actually watch it very often. even less often do i make the time to sit down and watch a specific programme… but for the past season i’ve found myself making a point of making time to watch “how to look good naked”.

at first blush, it looks like a standard makeover show – women unhappy with their looks getting professional advice and new haircuts. but what makes this programme unique and worthwhile, (rather than just another hour long advert for increasing the profits of the beauty industry at the expense of women’s self-esteem), is that the entire message throughout the show is *not* about changing how you look, but about changing how you feel.

yes, you read that right. there are no endorsements for plastic surgery, no discussions about dieting, not even a suggestion for healthy exercise. the women learn to feel good about themselves, just as they are – lumps, bumps, and all. throughout the programme, women of all sizes parade around in nothing more than their cotton underwear, and the climax of the show consists of a segment where the woman takes part in a naked photo shoot.

if that idea doesn’t sound like the standard recipe for successful television, you’d usually be right. in a day and age where reality makeover shows find success by focusing almost exclusively on making people look younger, thinner, and artificially enhanced, the idea that you can be beautiful without changing a single thing – that in fact you already *are* beautiful and just don’t know it yet – is so singular as to be revolutionary.

part of the reason i love the show, is that it makes me feel happier and more confident in my *own* body – and i would hazard to guess that its popularity is based in working exactly the same magic for others. there’s always a huge smile on my face at the end of the show when the woman (who sometimes hasn’t even let her own husband see her naked) is strutting her stuff in her altogether in front of a giant crowd of people – there is something so uplifting about seeing a woman full of spirit and self-assurance, it *is* beautiful. and granted, there is still some emphasis on makeup and “foundation garments” as part of a way to enhance one’s overall appearance, (so it’s not entirely free from the conventional standards of beauty) but the overall motif basically boils down to this: looking sexy comes from feeling sexy, and feeling sexy comes from loving your body just as it is.

and while it is depressing to realise just how many of the shows out there make money by making women feel bad about themselves based solely on their appearance, it is unbelievably exciting to see a show that radically departs from that formula by making women feel good about who they are inside, irrespective of body size or shape. to me, that’s television worth watching.

i’ve recently discovered that there’s a new spinoff version of “how to look good naked” for the states. let’s hope it’s the start of a trend.

bjork – big time sensuality

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ha ha ha ha ha!!!

for those of you american readers who don’t know, jeremy clarkson is a controversial, opinionated tv presenter and columnist… the uk’s version of bill o’reilly, if bill o’reilly was a more civilised form of neanderthal who drove racecars. he’s recently published his bank details in a column in response to the government’s loss of data on 25 million people, in an effort to prove it was much ado about nothing.

he’s got his comeuppance now.

Gobby TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has been forced to reverse his position after he lost money after publishing his bank account details in a newspaper column.

The Top Gear presenter rather rashly published his account details in a column in The Sun to back up his claims that the child benefit data loss furore, which resulted in the loss of unencrypted CDs containing bank details of 25m people, was a lot of fuss about nothing.

Clarkson published his bank account number and sort code, along with clues to his address, insisting that the worst that could happen was that someone could pay money into his account.

Days later Clarkson was forced to admit he was wrong after an unidentified prankster set up a £500 direct debit from the presenter’s account in favour of charity Diabetes UK, the BBC reports.

“The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again,” Clarkson said in a column published in the Sunday Times. “I was wrong and I have been punished for my mistake.”

Clarkson, never one to shy away from colourful or controversial commentary, is now hopping mad over the data loss. “Contrary to what I said at the time, we must go after the idiots who lost the discs and stick cocktail sticks in their eyes until they beg for mercy,” he said.

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